After Sunset

The days at Sweet Apple Acres blur together quickly, and I’m grateful for it. My time vanishes into a steady routine of sleeping, eating, and working while the season grinds slowly towards winter, and before I know it an entire month has passed.

My fear of hiding my scars proved to be mostly unfounded. The temperature dropped quickly enough that I was rarely out in the orchards without a thick, borrowed jacket and gloves. That was good for me, but terrible for Applejack.

Every morning we go out there are more spoiled apples. Every day that passed there are more lost crops.

We work as fast as we can, sun-up to sundown, picking and storing as much as possible, but it’s no secret that we’re not going to harvest everything. This is a race that we know we're going to lose and now it's a matter of losing less badly than we otherwise might.

Applejack is tense and her mood gets worse as the days pass, but at least she’s not looking at me with those flinching eyes anymore. In fact, she's barely looking at me at all.

For the first few days, it was almost unbearable. But the closer we got to November and the full end of autumn, the more she must have decided she had worse things to worry about than me.

That and there’s a trick to Applejack I learned a long time ago, which is that if something actually does get under her skin, the best angle is to just not talk about it, pretend nothing happened, and she’ll swap right back to whatever she was doing. It’s easier for her to just pretend nothing is wrong, and frankly, at this point, it’s easier for me too.

At least with the constant work, I haven’t had time to get lost in my own head. More and more I’ve found that’s a good thing.

The less time I spend with my thoughts, the better I feel.

It’s nearing the end of the season though, and that means that soon there won’t be much work in terms of harvesting, but there’s got to be something else. Farm work never ends. I’ve heard those words from Applejack over and over and over in the years I’ve known her so there’ll have to be something.

I cling to that hope as I heft the latest basket of apples I’ve gathered. They’re a little past their prime, but apparently those are fine for making things like cider and applesauce. Not the best stuff in the world, but far from bad, and it’s been a long time since I’ve had a good cider.

Memories of sneaking down into the cellar to sneak some of the fresh stuff with Applejack before the fair stall opened when we were kids brings a small, painful smile to my face as I descend the steps into the storage beneath the barn.

A reflexive shiver goes up my spine, and even now, after a month on the farm, and a month of going between orchard, here, and back, I still get chills and half-expect to smell that stink of death, old and new, that hung around the basement in Sunset’s Trial.

I ignore it, the same way I’ve been doing, and head towards the rear of the dark lower level to put the apples into the bins where they’re collected. My eyes pick out the faint colours of the ones I’m storing, and I move them two and three at a time from the basket to the bin.

As I do, my ears pick up an unfamiliar sound thrumming through the air and rumbling through the bones of the barn’s foundation.

A car engine, a loud one. Twelve cylinders, I know that immediately although I can’t say as to how or why. It’s like I can feel the cylinders thunder. I can feel each one moving to the beat of the explosions of internal combustion.

A twelve-cylinder car, that’s crazy expensive. Definitely some kind of muscle car, and it’s beating the squalid silence of the orchards into submission with main aural force.

‘You know’

I start and spin around, looking back and forth in the darkness for the source of the voice that had hissed out at me. The sound of metal rasping against metal, thin blades against thin blades, echoes in my ears.

‘You know, don’t you?’

The faint light of the dim autumn sun glimmers through the floorboards of the barn and reflects off of something behind me. Something sharp and silver, and I whirl around, my breath seizing in my chest as I stare into the darkness, looking for cerulean embers.

Looking for her.

There’s no one there. Nothing and no one. Just my brain making me hear things and see things again. Just my snapped mind trying to find someone I’d never see again.

My heart is pounding as I back away from the shadows, then I turn and make my way quickly up the steps and out of the basement.

The sound of twelve rumbling cylinders, groaning at idle, reaches my ears, and an instinct from the back of my mind tells me to duck; to keep low, and circle around back to the rear of the house. An itch goes down my arm, tickling across my scars as I sidle around the barn towards the house, and around until I’m ducking down near the north side just beneath the guest room window.

The vehicle I’d heard from the barn is an enormous, long-nosed muscle car, and just being close to it while it’s idling is giving me a headache. I can’t even imagine what riding in it would be like.

Applejack is approaching from the orchards where we were working with her brother hot on her heels. I’m not used to seeing Big Mac moving quickly. He’s the sort of person who knows where he’s going and gets there as economically as possible, with long, even strides.

Not now, though.

“Hey!” Applejack’s voice calls out sharply over the engine roar as she approaches the car with a dark look on her face. “Y’all got business here?”

The driver’s side opens, and a heavy-set woman steps out. She's tall and robust with a pale olive complexion, short-cropped brown hair, and a grim, analytical look in her eyes as they sweep across the farm before settling on Applejack and her brother.

After a moment, she nods, moves to the rear passenger side door, opens it, and another figure steps out. For a moment, they’re eclipsed by the enormous car, but as they stand and straighten, my mouth goes dry and my blood runs cold.

She’s neither tall nor particularly short, her build isn’t really excessive in one direction or another in terms of weight, either. Her professional black-and-white blazer sits comfortably on her compact form, and her severe expression is framed by short, arrow-straight locks of iron-gray shot through with streaks of red.

If someone were to look between the two of us, they wouldn’t see much resemblance.

Not much.

Nothing but the eyes.

I’ve always had my mother’s eyes.

Sharp flecks of frozen cerise settle on Applejack first as she approaches the woman who walked out on dad and I better than half a decade ago, and I watch the jolt of instinctive fear go through Applejack as her stride hitches.

My mom has this… look, that she gives people. It’s something in the way her eyes narrow and line up with her shoulders that gives everyone pause. It was the same when I was a kid. That look could make everything in me lock up cold the instant she turned it on me.

The fear is familiar. It’s primal, even in a child. Kids know, instinctively, to be quiet in the presence of something that can, and will, hurt you.

“Jacqueline Apple?” My mother’s clipped tones come across clear and sharp as the late autumn air. “I have questions for you.”

“That’s some real brass ones ya got there, lady,” Applejack says crossly as she stops a few feet from my mother. “Folks don’t just barge onto mah family’s property and demand answers… not polite folk, anyhow.”

“I’m not interested in being polite.” My mother squares up against Applejack, and despite the eldest Apple daughter having a handspan of height on my mom, she still backs down. “My name is Winnow Winds, and I’m here to ask about my daughter, Rainbow Dash.”

Applejack’s expression hardens, but before she can say something stupid or give something away with her abysmal lack of lying skills, Big Mac puts a hand on her shoulder and gently, but firmly, moves his sister out of the way.

If Applejack has an extra handspan on my mom, then Big Mac has a full right cross, and he levels that unflinching emerald gaze of his down on mom with a particularly stony weight.

“Ah’m Big Macintosh Apple, an’ this is mah farm,” he rumbles. “If y’all got somethin’ t’say then I’d suggest ya say it, as me’n mine got a lot’a work to get done t’day.”

My mother looks Big Mac up and down, just a quick flick of her gaze. Then she smiles and nods to her bodyguard who sticks a hand into their jacket and pulls out a business card to hand off to Mac.

“If you ever need gainful employment, contact my company, Windlass Security,” she says as he takes the card. “You have the body and the demeanor for the work, I’ll pay your travel, relocation, and certification expenses on contract terms, and you’ll have a salary of one hundred and fifty thousand a year starting out.”

I can almost hear Applejack’s jaw drop, despite herself. That was probably more money than any of her family had ever seen, especially not in a year. Farming just didn’t pay that well anymore, and I know they barely scratch better than even on a year by year basis.

“Thank ya kindly,” Mac says politely, and tucks the card into his chest pocket without looking at it. “Now if that’s all?”

“It’s not,” my mother says sharply. “My daughter, Rainbow Dash, has been missing for almost eight months, and according to my ex-husband your family is close with her.” Her eyes narrow in a hard scowl. “He only recently mentioned your names, as he seemed certain you would contact him if you heard from her… I, however, am less sanguine about that notion.”

“Dash’s a good friend’a ours, but she dropped off the face’a the world like ya said,” Mac says without the slightest shift in his expression. “Fer certain, she’d have a home with us if she needed it, but she ain’t come askin’, an’ Ah doubt she ever will… askin’ fer help ain’t ever been in that girl’s nature.”

I watch my mother’s lips twitch upward just slightly.

“My daughter is almost as stubborn as I am,” my mother says in a soft, cutting tone. “But I’ve checked with every single one of her friends and their parents, and I’ve found nothing… and there’s plenty of room on this property for you to hide her.”

“If y’all’re talkin’ about searchin’ our land,” Mac says in a voice like a distant thunderhead, “then Ah’m gonna politely suggest that that ain’t gonna happen.”

I swallow hard, and I watch from my hiding place at the farmhouse corner as Big Mac and my mother stare each other down. She’s barely up to the middle of his chest, but even knowing how strong Big Mac is I wouldn’t give him very good odds. The Apples don’t know my mom the way I do.

“Is that your final answer?” My mother’s tone is a viperous hiss, and it sends a chill straight down my spine and into my gut.

“Ayep,” Mac replies with a stolid nod.

“I see…” My mother takes a single step closer and raises her head to look Big mac directly in the eyes. Her face is a frozen rictus of polite rage. “Consider this your only warning, then, hayseed:

“If I find out my daughter is or was here, I will descend on this rancid little scrap of nowhere with an army of lawyers. I will sue every inch of every acre out from under your family, and once it’s mine I will come down here and personally chop every single tree down, rip the stumps out by the roots, salt the earth, and sell the land as a fucking parking lot.”

She leans in another inch, her mouth splitting into a vicious, blade’s-edge grin.

“Are we clear?”

“Crystal clear, Miss Winds,” Mac says in that quiet, obdurate rumble of his.

Her smile never wavers as she reaches up and pats him on the chest twice, then nods and says. “The offer of employment still stands, by the by… nothing personal, but it’s the principle of the thing. I’m sure you understand.”

“Ayep,” Big Mac says with a nod. “Nothin’ personal.”

“Good man,” she replies before turning and stepping back into her car.

Her linebacker guard gives Mac and Applejack a polite nod, then she moves around the front of the car, gets into the driver’s seat, shifts gears, and reverses down the driveway before pulling out onto the country road heading back to Canterlot.

I turn and curl up against the side of the farmhouse wall. My heart is beating like a jackhammer in my chest, my mouth is still dry, and I’m soaked in a cold sweat. I haven’t even seen my mom in almost five years, and somehow she’s gotten even more terrifying.

No part of me relaxes until the sound of that heavy, thunderous engine vanishes entirely from the distance. When it does, I stand up on shaky legs, swallow back my gorge, and stumble out from around the corner and head up the porch and into the house.

Mac and Applejack are talking quietly as I meander in, and Applejack practically knocks over the stool she’s sitting on as she rushes to my side.

“Dash! There ya are,” she croaks, pulling me into a hug. “We weren’t sure where ya went but- dammit, ah reckon ya saw all what happened up front from somewhere, huh?”

“Yeah I uh… yeah,” I mumble, nodding vacantly. “I was hiding around the north end of the house. I watched the whole thing.”

“Yer momma’s somethin’ else,” Mac says flatly.

I snort out a bitter laugh and nod. “Yeah, ‘something’ is a word for what she is. Raging homophobic psychopath is another.”

Both Mac and Applejack raise eyebrows at that, and I swat the door closed behind me as I step into the kitchen and sit down.

Before I can ask for anything, Mac sets a glass of water down in front of me, and I take it with a grateful nod before downing it in one go and passing it back to him. He takes it, refills it, and gives it back. I go through another three glasses of water and half an hour of just trying to breathe before I stop shaking enough to find the words I want to say.

To warn them about the kind of person they just pissed off.

“Just so you know,” I say after a quiet moment, “my mom will totally do everything she just threatened to do if she finds out about me being here.”

“Pretty sure she was exaggerating, Dashie,” Applejack says with a small chuckle.

I don’t laugh. There’s nothing to laugh about. I just raise my head and look her dead in the eyes, and she flinches back from me. Maybe it’s because it’s me, but more probably it’s because my eyes are so much like my mother’s.

“When my dad came out as bi to her when I was like, twelve, mom had divorce papers served the next day,” I say without looking away, and both of the siblings’ eyes widen. “And then, she spent the next year trying to get custody of me on the grounds that my dad was an unfit parent, and the fact that she lost is probably the reason she refuses to come near us.”

I stand up and wrap my arms around myself as I start to pace back and forth.

“I cried in front of her once when I was six,” I snarl, not looking up. “I think I’d fallen down and skinned my knee or something, and she just watched and waited until I was done, and… and fuck, I still remember it like a fucking movie in my head, but she just walked up, knelt down, looked me in the eyes and said - ‘that’s the last time you cry in front of me, do you understand?’ and it fucking was!”

“What the hell?” Applejack’s jaw drops as she walks over to me, one hand raised for a moment before she drops it. “Dash that’s… that’s messed up.”

“Every sport I went out for, I did because she told me to.” I’m babbling, but I don’t know how to shut it off, so I just keep talking as I tighten my grip around myself. “When I was eight Mom said, ‘you’re stupid but you’re fast, get faster and stronger, and then you’ll be worth something,’ so I did! And she pushed me and pushed me, and Dad just figured she was being supportive but- but honestly I was just fucking terrified of fucking up!”

I stand, move into the den, and drop into one of the chairs so I can curl my knees up beneath my chin and try to stop shaking. It doesn't help, though. I just keep seeing those eyes staring at me, telling me to get better, to do better, to be better.

Applejack moves quietly around until she’s kneeling in front of me and reaches out. She hesitates though. She pauses over my left hand, just for a heartbeat, before taking my right hand in hers and squeezing.

“Dash, did… did your momma- did she ever-?”

I shake my head. “She never laid a hand on me… not like that.”

I almost wish she had. Maybe if she’d taken a swing at me once in a while someone could have noticed. Hell, even if they didn’t notice I think if she’d lost her temper and beat me once in a while it would have actually been a relief because she would have at least seemed more human.

“She’d make me practice track and soccer for hours, even when I was exhausted and falling over,” I say dully. “And every time I did anything it was always ‘do it again’ or ‘not good enough’.” I hang my head and card my fingers through my hair as a shudder sets up in my limbs. “Nothing I did was ever good enough… even when I won, even when I came in first place, all she ever said was ‘good, but you can do better’.”

“Didn’t yer daddy ever say anythin’ about all that?” Mac asks, and even his normally toneless voice has taken on a tight expression of anger and disbelief. “How could he jus’ let yer momma say all them awful things?”

“Because my dad is a coward and my mom is a bully,” I say with a bitter laugh. “Dad was always her whipping boy, I think that’s why she married him. Because he’d stay home and raise me, and she could keep working… that’s the only reason my childhood had any fun in it is that she was working late so often but…”

A weak, humorless laugh bubbles out of me.

“Y’know, I never respected my dad as a kid,” I say after a moment. “He could ask me to do something stupid and simple and I’d just give him lip, but then he’d say the magic words, and I’d have it done in an instant.”

“Ah’m guessin’ them words weren’t any type’a way of sayin’ ‘please’?” Applejack drawls grimly.

“No,” I reply, my jaw clenching as I remember them. “They were: ‘let's go talk to your mother’.”

Thinking back on it, I wonder if dad just thought I was a mommy’s girl. He couldn’t get me to take the trash out without a knock-down-drag-out fight, but the moment he mentioned mom that trash was on the fucking curb. He probably had no idea that those words had me pissing scared.

Applejack lets out a low whistle as she rocks back on her heels, lets go of my hand and sits down in front of the chair with a stunned expression. She probably can’t even imagine a mom like mine since hers was apparently a saint.

“So yeah,” I continue. “My mom doesn’t fuck around. If she says she’ll do something, even if it sounds completely fucking unhinged, then she’ll do it.”

“Well, ain’t like she can just sneak up on us in that tank she’s drivin’,” Applejack says with a weak laugh.

I can’t keep the scoff down as I stand and nearly bowl Applejack over as I storm to the window and jerk the blinds shut and the drapes closed.

“You don’t get it!” I snap as I turn around. “My mom is crazy! C-R-A-Z-Y! Crazy! She’ll hire private eyes to hang out and take pictures! She did it to my dad years ago, and she’s got way more money now! All she needs is one good picture!”

“So what?!” Applejack snaps as she stands to face me. “Ain’t like she can just drag ya outta here! Y’all ain’t even a minor anymore, ain’t been for awhile! We’re nineteen!”

An inchoate snarl of rage and frustration spills out of my throat as I drag my fingers through my hair and down my face. I’m shaking so badly I can barely see straight!

“You still don’t get it!” I shout, putting Applejack back on her heels as I jab a finger into her chest. “She won’t sue you for hiding me! She’ll find something else! Anything else! It’s not just about getting me back, it’s about hurting you for lying to her!”

I can’t breathe, but I know what I have to do. I blow past Applejack and move for the staircase, but Big Mac puts himself between me and the guest room where all of my crap is.

For a brief moment, I think of just making a run for the door, or even just going out a window. The notion of just running at the window and hurtling myself through it to escape is almost funny enough that I laugh.

Almost.

“Y’all ain’t leavin’, Dashie,” Mac says, holding up a single, broad hand. “It ain’t safe.”

“Fuck that, it’s less safe here!” I snap.

“Rainbow Dash, you are not going back to livin’ on the streets!” Applejack snarls, stomping over to me and grabbing my wrist. “Yer stayin’ here an’ that’s final!”

“Why?!” I yell, ripping my arm from her grip. My world is washing red. A heartbeat is pounding in my ears and somewhere nearby I can hear the rasping of metal on metal. “You don’t really want me here! You can’t even look at me!”

“That’s-!” Applejack stalls and I advance on her.

“You think I don’t see you flinch every time you look at my arms?”I snarl. “You think I don’t notice how you avoid even looking me in the eye?! Don’t you fucking tell me you want me here! You took one look at my skin the night I got here and then ran away!”

“You what?”

A soft, cherubic voice cuts through the tension of the conversation like one of Sunset’s razor-edged fingers, and everyone in the den freezes. Applejack blanches, my heart jams itself in my throat, and even Big Macintosh nearly jumps before turning slowly to look behind him.

Fluttershy is standing in the doorway, looking like the specter of Summer in her flowing yellow sundress and white cardigan. Her eyes are wide and disbelieving as they fix on Applejack, and her slack, expressionless face is pale as a ghost as she moves past Big Mac to join us in the den.

“I… I heard that Winnow was coming up here so…” Fluttershy swallows dryly around her halting words, “...so I followed to make sure she didn’t…”

Fluttershy’s voice is drifting around as she looks between Applejack and I. Those baby blue eyes of hers are unblinking as they finally settle on Applejack alone.

“A...Applejack is that- did… did you-?”

Unsurprisingly, Applejack doesn’t even try to defend herself. She just stares, terrified, at Fluttershy for a long moment before slowly dropping her eyes to the ground and clenching them shut.

Finally, she just says:

“Ah’m sorry.”

I open my mouth to tell Fluttershy to drop it. That it doesn’t matter and that it never mattered. That I didn’t need to cry on Applejack's shoulder, or do anything or say anything, because none of it ever mattered.

I don’t get the chance to.

Even though I’m looking right at her, I don't see Fluttershy move. None of us do. I know because Applejack wasn’t even looking at her, and if Mac or I had gotten the chance we both would’ve gotten between them.

That’s not what happens, because for the first time in my life Fluttershy moves faster than I can even register as she lets out a shriek of unadulterated rage and slaps Applejack so hard that it rattles every window in the den.

The look of disbelief that Fluttershy had been wearing a second before is replaced with a twisted expression of anger I’ve never, in my life, seen her wear. She’s panting like an animal, with eyes wide, brow creased, and jaw clenched in fury. Her right hand is red and shaking, still frozen on her left side from her it crossed Applejack’s cheek.

Applejack is on the floor.

Fluttershy hit her so hard she took the stout farmgirl’s feet right out from under her. Blood is pooling out of her mouth and there’s enough that I know she must’ve bitten her tongue, and for a frozen moment no one in the den moves.

Then-

“HOW DARE YOU!” Fluttershy screams down at the cowering Applejack. “You ran away? You just ran off and left her?! After she tried to-! She could’ve-! I TRUSTED YOU!”

Big Mac moves around Fluttershy, trying to put a calming hand on her shoulder but she throws him off. Even in a situation like this, Big Mac is the gentle giant. He knows how strong he is. He could stop Fluttershy by throwing her over his shoulder and marching her out of the house.

He won’t though. It’s not in him to just handle someone like that, especially not Fluttershy.

I kind of wish he was less chivalrous at the moment.

Fluttershy takes another step forward until she’s standing, looming almost, over Applejack. I never knew she had this in her. Fluttershy was always the gentlest, kindest, most soft-hearted member of our group. Even Pinkie can’t compare to her.

Now she looks like a vengeful demon, and I would know.

“That’s it.” Fluttershy hisses the words around clenched teeth. “I’m taking Rainbow away and… and…” she shakes her head, angry tears spilling hot down her cheeks. “I never wanted to say this again, but this time… this time I really, really mean it Applejack. We’re not friends anymore.”

“Fluttershy stop!” Panic is welling in my chest as I try to get between them. It’s happening again. “We’re friends! It doesn’t matter!”

“STOP SAYING THAT!” Fluttershy turns on me, red-faced and furious. “Stop saying it doesn’t matter! It matters! You matter!”

“NO I DON’T!” I bellow, rocking Fluttershy back several steps until Big Mac catches her. “I don’t! I’m not worth this!”

“You’re worth everything!” Fluttershy cries, pulling away from Mac and trying to grab at my shirt, but I move away from her. She holds out her hands that are pleading and shaking. “You’re worth everything to me.”

Oh.

Oh.

I step back from Fluttershy. From Applejack, and from Big Mac, and from the world as the meaning of Fluttershy’s words finally sinks in. I didn’t see it because I wasn’t looking, and she knew I wasn’t looking. She didn’t care, she tried anyway.

You’re worth everything to me.

“No.” I shake my head.

My world is washing red again, furious, arterial red. I can hear a heartbeat thundering in my ears as lightning pain shoots down my arms and legs and through my whole body.

I love Sunset.

Sunset!

There’s no room for anything else. I grip my head as my whole world feels like it’s shaking violently to pieces and scream as a splitting pain tears through me. I taste ash and blood in my mouth, and suddenly my legs are burning.

I have to go. I’m poisoning everything and everyone around me. I’m destroying everything because that’s all I ever do. I’m useless, worthless, stupid, and pointless. There was never anything I could do right and this just proves it! I can’t-!

I bolt from the den towards the door. This time Big Mac is ready and moves to intercept me, but he can’t. I don’t let him. Pain ignites inside of my muscles, turning from agony into pure, unfiltered power as I swing my arm in a graceless club against his chest.

Something cracks and the wind goes out of Mac in the same instant that he’s lifted from his feet and sent hurtling back. There’s a cacophonous crash as his massive form shatters through the lower banisters of the stairs, and he sprawls on them cradling his chest while I rush outside in a half-drunk stagger.

There’s something staining my arms. Something is wet beneath my bandages. I can feel it just like I can feel the bandages straining and ripping from what's beneath them. I’m not sure what I’d be seeing if my jacket wasn’t covering my arm, and I don’t think I want to.

I stumble into the driveway. Fluttershy's clunky van is taking up the front drive where my mom had been parked and I race past it. My limbs are numb and burning at the same time. My throat is clenching even as my gut tries to fill it with bile. My vision doubles, then triples.

Can’t… can’t stay here. I can’t stay here.

‘One, two, Sunny’s coming for you~’

“Rainbow, wait!” Fluttershy’s voice carries through the air, but it’s distant and distorted.

‘Three, four, better lock your door~’

I keep moving, keep running, my shoes dig into the gravel drive with deafening force even as the pain in my head turns unbearable.

‘Five, six, grab your crucifix~’

Metal rasping on metal. Blades on blades. Heartbeats and grinding cylinders. The taste of ash and blood.

“Please.”

‘Seven, eight, try and stay up late~’

I turn, but I don’t stop moving. I keep stepping back. Backing away from Fluttershy who’s surrounded by Fog.

No… Not surrounded. She’s outside the Fog. She’s reaching for me, but I’m too deep.

‘Nine, ten, never sleep again~’

I scream and the world shatters. I’m falling or running or both, and all around me is Fog and darkness. The farmhouse is gone. Fluttershy and Applejack and Big Macintosh are gone.

…

Then my feet hit the ground hard. The taste of cold, dirty concrete and damp garbage hits my nose, the smell of the East End. It’s there for a brief moment before I drop to my knees and elbows, vomit, and then fall over.

My vision closes slowly, like a dying light at the end of a distant tunnel, but I hear something before it all goes dark.

Footsteps and… a voice.

“Well I’ll be damned… Chase was right. She came back.”